Curator of Stephen G Beaumont Museum Resigns

It is with great sadness that Michael McCarthy announced his reluctant resignation as curator of the museum on August 15, 2012. Michael started at Stanley Royd Hospital in 1984 as a porter before becoming the curator ten years ago. With a wealth of knowledge covering the complete history of the former asylum Michael will be greatly missed by visitors and friends alike.

Michael would like to thank his line manager Elaine for all her support, help and friendship over the years.

Introduction

The foundation of the large hospitals for the care of the mentally ill, the asylums, was a significant event in the history of humane concern for the sick. Before the nineteenth century such care had been uncertain and at times worse than the inhumane. In the absence of any curative treatment public and professional attitudes had veered to the opinion that mental illness was somehow the fault of the individual, a spiritual weakness; sometimes the manifestations of the disease were supposed to be the expression of evil demons which had possessed the soul. The cruel punishments inflicted upon some were unfortunate people who, because of their symptoms were supposed to be witches, are among the worst records of man’s inhumanity toward his fellow beings. In Britain, apart from private and mad houses, many of sinister repute, little existed beside the Bethlam Hospital in London known as Bedlam, an institution which the painting by Hogarth reminds us became a tourist attraction where genteel society might mock the at the strange antics of the inhabitants; in the latter part of the 18th century other lunatic hospitals were founded and indeed subject to a sort of inspection following an Act for regulating Madhouses passed in 1774; it is probable that this was not very effective and abuses at the asylum at York were to lead William Tuke to be involved in the foundation of the Retreat at that city.

An act of parliament in 1808 provided that counties should establish institutions for the care of the pauper lunatics and this promoted better care. Within a short space of time the pauper lunatic asylums were being constructed throughout the kingdom; the West Riding Asylum at Wakefield being established in 1818, a member of the Tuke family, Samuel, being much involved in advice about its construction.

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The West Riding Asylums – Care & Treatment

A new spirit pervaded the attitude to mental illness, enthusiasm for the possibility of care resting upon the introduction of meaningful occupation on the farms attached to the hospitals. This enthusiasm is clearly apparent in the account of the asylum which became Stanley Royd Hospital. The account which follows is constructed around the personalities who successively were appointed as Directors of the hospital and of those staff who worked with them. Some achieved a lasting place in the annals of psychiatric care and study of mental illness. Sir William Ellis, the first Director of the Hospital set a high standard of care. Henry Maudsley, who founded the hospital in London known by his name, worked briefly at the Hospital. Dr Ferrier developed pathological research, Dr Bevan Lewis wrote one of the early influential texts of psychiatry and Dr Shaw Bolton established teaching of mental disease in Leeds University, and became one of the early professors of psychiatry. Perhaps the best known character is Sir James Crichton-Browne physician, administrator and teacher.

The history of the large mental hospitals well deserves recollection of the arduous work and devoted care by those who would not see them razed to the ground in the nebulous endeavour to establish community care for the mentally sick.

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Tracing your Ancestors

Unfortunately I do not hold any Medical Records in reference to the hospital

The public is permitted access to any records 100 years old or older; access to more recent records is restricted.

If you are requesting personal information about a relative who has died within the last 100 years you may be asked to provide proof of this relationship in the form of death and birth certificates and letters of permission from the personal representative of the deceased.

This situation is that basically, records between 30 – 100 years old are indeed restricted, but that access can be facilitated via application to the NHS Trusts via the West Yorkshire Archive Service at Wakefield.

When the West Yorkshire Archive Service at Wakefield have responded initially to say the request has been received, a formal response will be issued within 30 working days as permitted by the Freedom of Information (Time for Compliance with Request) Regulations 2004 (S.I. 2004/3364). This allows time for the assessment of the request under the terms of FOIA, including consultation with the relevant NHS Trust, and the application of a public interest test where relevant.

Where access is permitted, West Yorkshire Archive Service needs to ensure that enquirers only have access to information to which no valid exemption applies. This may mean that it is not possible to grant access to the original physical record but that access to the information may be given by transcribing the relevant sections or by providing a photocopy with exempt information blanked out.

As far as hospital records go, there are many surviving, particularly admission and discharge registers, and the location and scope of such records can be traced via the Hospital Records Database.

A knowledge of history is no mere diversion; without it, those fertile avenues of thought which have so often led to innovation and advance must be explored again, and without it the lesson of many a disastrous mistake which should have been learnt will be suffered once more.

Dr R. P. Snaith

Psychiatrist and Chairman of Committee for Progressive Care and Rehabilitation.

Let not the legislature suppose that in making provision for the insane, paupers alone ought to be embraced within the purview of its compassion. There are at this time very large and increasing classes of individuals, whom the vicissitudes of life have reduced to such scanty means of subsistence that they may be said to be constantly struggling against what they consider the disgrace of chargeability.

Corsellis

Annual Report 1844

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Stanley Royd Hospital

The asylum was necessary to care for the treatment and care of the insane poor, work began on it in 1816. The main builders were John Robson, John Billinton and William Pockrin - all from Wakefield. When completed the hospital was first occupied by the 23rd of November 1818. The eventual cost of the building work was £23,000 being £7,000 more than the contracted price. The total cost was shown in the records as £36,448. 4s. 9¼d.

The asylum stood in an area of 25 acres. For privacy the grounds were surrounded by plantation in either Wakefield or Stanley to be quiet, peaceful and secluded. It was a much needed hospital for in the early part of the 19th century very little was available by way of treatment for mental illness. Before the opening of this asylum, sufferers were incarcerated in prisons, workhouses or in their own homes at none of which treatment was available except for purging, bleeding or mechanical restraint.

Some of records of mechanical restraint make horrific reading. There was a case of a James Norris who, at Bethlem Hospital, London, was chained for several years to a vertical bar fixed to a wall, able only to slide in his chains from a sitting to a standing position. Records tell at Wakefield of a woman patient admitted from Barnsley Workhouse where she had been chained in a cell for no less than 36 years.

Therefore there was the need for a hospital which would care for the people in need of treatment for mental disorders. So Stanley played its part in the beginning of better treatment for the unfortunate.

In 1859 the water supply to the asylum gave concern. In the early days the supply had been from 'springs' and, for domestic purposes, collected from the roofs of the buildings. Seasonal failure of the springs caused concern and at these times water was brought direct from the River Calder in water wagons until the springs once again ran freely.

It is interesting to note that in evidence given to a commission of inquiry in 1866 on the pollution of the River Calder, it was established that in 1818 roach, perch and other fish abounded, As late as 1826 a stone thrown into the river could be seen at seven or eight feet deep.

The prospectus for the proposed Wakefield Waterworks Company of 1836 proposed that 'water superior in purity to any spring at present under consideration, and sufficient in quantity to supply the largest City in Europe should be obtained from a point about 4 miles below the Wakefield Chantry Bridge.' That point was in the ferry area. The Wakefield Waterworks Company is shown on an 1850 plan to be behind the Stanley Ferry pits.

A road or footpath was used by the villagers of Stanley for many years on which they carried their dead from Stanley to Wakefield Parish Church burial ground which was in The Springs. This roadway ran in a line to the east of Ouchthorpe Lane to Vicars Lane and had been used for this purpose for many years. It was also used by drovers moving cattle and sheep from the Wakefield Cattle Market to Leeds, although they had not the right to use it for that purpose but they did so because it was a way of evading payment of tolls at Newton Bar on the Leeds Road which was, at that time, a 'Toll Road'.

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High Royds Hospital - Menston Asylum

After years of construction the new Asylum was to take in her first 30 female inmates on the 8th October 1888, all transfers from the overcrowded Wadsley Asylum, Sheffield.